Spoilers to follow…
The unofficial Hellraiser: Judgment post-mortem continues today, with writer-director Gary J. Tunnicliffe running the rule over the film’s finale.
Chatting to ComicBook.com, Tunnicliffe spoke at length about the poetic fate that befell Pinhead, after Paul T. Taylor’s sinister leader was forced to live out the remainder of his life in our realm as a cripplingly average human being. Talk about flipping the tables!
As for the ending, in particular, the filmmaker looked to his own short, No More Souls, for inspiration when stripping Pinhead of his supernatural, god-like status.
I got to a point where I was writing the end of the film, and I thought, ‘I’m not gonna have somebody hold the box up, close it, and say, ‘Go to Hell.’ I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it again. And it’s like, ‘Oh, so what do you do? Do you tear them apart with hooks and chains?’ Well, I kind of did that in [the short film] No More Souls. I went down that road and tore Pinhead apart, even though it was only a fan film that obviously got more attention and became kind of a little canon of its own.
And at least for now, Gary J. Tunnicliffe has no firm plans for a sequel. In fact, he even balked at the suggestion that he intentionally ended Judgment on a cliffhanger in order to tee up the next installment.
I had no concept of a sequel, a spinoff, nothing at all. People suggest, ‘Oh, you’re trying to write a sequel for the auditor and stuff like that.’ It’s like, ‘Are you fucking kidding?’ I was just trying to swim to other bank and survive without being eaten by the sharks.
With that said, the writer-director admits that there’s still plenty of material left to explore, and he even floated the idea of a new Cenobite ruler coming in to supplant Pinhead:
I have thought about it afterwards, what I think would be great fun. Maybe a new Cenobite ruler comes in, or takes over, and a new head priest comes in, and it’s not working out and clearly this person, this Cenobite’s not doing a great job. And underhandedly, the Auditor is leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the guy who is Pinhead to find his way back, and he gets pulled in. And then it’s like, he turns up, and it’s like a showdown between the newly born Pinhead and this guy who’s taken over his mantle. It’s like, and we do a bit of a standoff, and it’s like battle of the Hell priests.
Hellraiser: Judgment is now available across Blu-ray and DVD (buy it on Amazon here), and if it’s more coverage you’re after, look no further than our in-depth review. Also, you may want to hang around after the credits to catch a bonus scene featuring The Auditor (Tunnicliffe).
